Stories and poems

"The metaphoric image of 'orphan lines' is a contrivance of the detached onlooker to whom the verbal art of continuous correspondences remains aesthetically alien. Orphan lines in poetry of pervasive parallels are a contradiction in terms, since whatever the status of a line, all its structure and functions are indissolubly interlaced with the near and distant verbal environment, and the task of linguistic analysis is to disclose the levels of this coaction. When seen from the inside of the parallelistic system, the supposed orphanhood, like any other componential status, turns into a network of multifarious compelling affinities.'Roman JAKOBSON, "Grammatical Parallelism and its Russian Facet", Language, 42/2, 1966, pp. 399-429, p. 428-429

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Constellations

We saw figures in the sky.
How the little dipper
poured into the big dipper
but the dragon came between.

Cassiopeia, small W
stared at Andromeda while
Perseus chased Taurus who
cried out to Gemini.

Then there is that
other part of the sky,
the part I haven't seen yet
you were born under

Orion's belt,
Monoceros,
the one horned,
Lepus, Pictor,

Reticulum,
Hydrus, Volans,
Chameleon,
Pegasus was bigger.

You changed sides,
Phoenix, dying in your ashes
rising again, on the other side
of the sky.